After placement of multiple buttressed sutures, an apical access to the left ventricle was created, and the apex cannula was inserted, fixed, and
deaired. The aortic valve replacement (29 mm Hancock II, Medtronic) was followed by the proximal ascending aortic anastomosis.
Secondly, the axial load piston was brought into contact with the specimen cap, and the specimen was filled with
deaired water; a chamber pressure of 35kPa or less was applied, and the specimen drainage valves were opened.
The porosity of each filter was measured gravimetrically by weighing a dry filter, saturating in
deaired, deionized water for 24 h and then reweighing.
The fracture was saturated first by introducing
deaired water through the water content monitoring system (see Figure 5).
The graft was
deaired retrogradely and was brought around through the base of the pericardium and onto the right side of the heart.
The specimens were saturated by being initially flushed with
deaired water and followed by increasing the back pressure of 100 kPa.
In the first stage, the soil sample is purged with carbon dioxide for 20 minutes and then percolated with
deaired water until a volume of water greater than one and a half times the sample volume has been collected.
Desired solutions were prepared using
deaired water to remove entrapped air within the pores, which is likely to affect water flow (Bond and Collis-George 1981) and hence hydraulic conductivity.
The specimens were initially flooded with carbon dioxide; after this step, the specimen was flooded with
deaired water, and back pressure was applied to saturate the specimens.